Action Comics #1 Cover OA...still exists?!? 2 2

[vodou]

2 minutes ago, vodou said:

"A lot who love" = millions worldwide. That's the set. But of that set, how many have $5m+ or whatever to bid with. That's the subset. And the population is so few, so very very few.

Just on this board, including lurkers that never post, how many have;

• $5m+ to lay up "immediately, cash or bank letter in hand"
• for a non-income producing asset
• requiring ongoing maintenance drag (environmental controls, security, insurance)
• whose only ROI will be finding that next greater fool(s) to bid high enough in the future to cover all transactional and maintenance drag and inflation adjustment
• and finally, most importantly, the insatiable desire to do this

Maybe two people (here). How many "out there"?

[glendgold]

Happy as I am to be quoted here, like I've been saying, my thinking has evolved toward the "the covers are gone" side.  It's been over 20 years since I wrote that thing, so apologies if my memory of how all this worked isn't sharp, but -- as I recall.  Eastern Color didn't print the covers.  They printed the interiors.  The covers were printed...I think...at Curtiss, hence the "Curtiss" on all those twice-up covers borders.  The article left out this detail -- Eastern sent everything back monthly; Curtiss sent them back quarterly, and separately, so there were envelopes with 3 months of covers in them.   When a bunch of covers from summer of '65 have showed up over the last 30 years, but nothing else for the quarter on either side, coupled with staffers' stories off needing to clear off the shelves to fit newer artwork there, I began to see what probably happened. 

I think some single covers survived but I don't think it was many: gifted to companies they were doing business with; taken as souvenirs; taken as art reference; taken for the heck of it.  Based on all the empirical evidence but not on anything anyone has told me, I think that if a specific cover was reprinted in altered form around 1966, it stood a small chance of being saved. 

[PhilipB2k17]

2 hours ago, vodou said:

"A lot who love" = millions worldwide. That's the set. But of that set, how many have $5m+ or whatever to bid with. That's the subset. And the population is so few, so very very few.

All it takes is one or two.

[PhilipB2k17]

27 minutes ago, glendgold said:

Happy as I am to be quoted here, like I've been saying, my thinking has evolved toward the "the covers are gone" side.  It's been over 20 years since I wrote that thing, so apologies if my memory of how all this worked isn't sharp, but -- as I recall.  Eastern Color didn't print the covers.  They printed the interiors.  The covers were printed...I think...at Curtiss, hence the "Curtiss" on all those twice-up covers borders.  The article left out this detail -- Eastern sent everything back monthly; Curtiss sent them back quarterly, and separately, so there were envelopes with 3 months of covers in them.   When a bunch of covers from summer of '65 have showed up over the last 30 years, but nothing else for the quarter on either side, coupled with staffers' stories off needing to clear off the shelves to fit newer artwork there, I began to see what probably happened. 

I think some single covers survived but I don't think it was many: gifted to companies they were doing business with; taken as souvenirs; taken as art reference; taken for the heck of it.  Based on all the empirical evidence but not on anything anyone has told me, I think that if a specific cover was reprinted in altered form around 1966, it stood a small chance of being saved. 

I think the key, important, covers were the ones most likely to be saved in this manner. (i.e. AF #15, or JIM #83). The random Rawhide Kid cover, not so much. That's my point. And I appreciate Glen adding to this discussion, but why would Curtiss' practices be any different than Eastern? I assume the handling of the OA was determined by what Marvel wanted, rather than the other way around. So, this goes back to the ultimate question of why Marvel would want the interior OA back, but not the covers.

Edited April 23, 2018 by PhilipB2k17

[PhilipB2k17]

2 hours ago, vodou said:

A better reply than I'm used to, above. Good. Two things: where are all the originals that weren't still with Marvel in 1974? What about gifts and other distributions that went to non-hobby hands pre-1974? One man's gift can be another man's (inheritors) garbage. None of this stuff had any market value presence pre-1980s and probably for those not "into" comics, until at least the Sotheby's and Christie's auctions. If one wasn't inclined to get CBG and wasn't attending San Diego or Chicago cons...as a random executive that Stan signed a contact with and gifted a cover to...you wouldn't know that a b/w piece of paper was any special at all. As easily kept as not. Or given to your kid to "color"!

Jim Shooter. And everybody else that's ever gone on the record...never assume there isn't a single liar in the bunch. Follow the money. Glen Gold is unlikely to lie, while Shooter, Gil Kane, Marv Wolfman, et al, would be more likely to lie. Especially as, back in the day when it wasn't forty and fifty year old topic of conversation, industry careers at one or the other of the Big Two were on the line. Nobody in that position is rushing to admit they stole from the company! Occam's Razor.

This is a wild response. First of all, why would Jim Shooter lie about it NOW? He has no reason to make this up. He actually admitted that the Marvel OA was at various points cavalierly treated and stored on site (even mentioning a box of it that went missing), and notes the old stories about it being handed to visitors as gifts by Stan and others.

Second, Glen has clarified his article (published 20 years ago) in this thread.

Third, Glen noted that Mark Evanier claims that Kirby was already requesting his art back in the 1960's, several years before it was inventoried. And it wouldn't shock me if people like Ditko were also demanding it then, as well. DC had a legal reason (or opinion from their corporate counsel) for destroying art, which Marvel did not.

[dem1138]

On top of what Glen wrote, what many of you may not know is that there were maverick OA collectors from 40+ years ago who were paying a lot of "real" money back then for the "guts" (which is what complete stories were known as).  These collectors may have had a sense of the future value but they are collectors in the truest sense that would rather sever their right arm than trade or sell the best of the best of what they now own.  And the concept of selling individual pages is a more recent development from the last 25 years or so.  These original original collectors were buying complete stories as thats how they came and thats how they were traded and bought and sold. 

Most of these collectors are still around and while they would never be on the boards, they have certainly been around and available to talk to.  Glen was an early pioneer in doing research but obviously everyone was looking for covers including those that were going to Kirby's house when he was still alive and buying art from him and asking questions and hearing stories.  Point is, people didn't just start looking for covers 20 years ago, they've been looking for decades - at least since the 70s/early 80s.  When the Marvel OA started "becoming available" from the storage garage (which led to dozens of legendary stories and rumors), don't you think they were after the covers too?  If they existed, then someone would know something and no one who I've talked to or anyone else they've talked to going back decades has seen anything.  And a lot of the "secrets" aren't really secrets (like where a lot of guts still reside) among people who have done the research.  So unless one person has them all and has never told anyone, then I'd be leaning towards them not existing either.  

I think one of the more realistic questions that has a definitive answer (though I have no info and nor does anyone I've talked to know - or they didn't share with me) is where are the guts to Avengers #4 and FF #48-50.  Because those guts certainly exist and are far too significant to have just been lost or thrown out.

[PhilipB2k17]

36 minutes ago, glendgold said:

Happy as I am to be quoted here, like I've been saying, my thinking has evolved toward the "the covers are gone" side.  It's been over 20 years since I wrote that thing, so apologies if my memory of how all this worked isn't sharp, but -- as I recall.  Eastern Color didn't print the covers.  They printed the interiors.  The covers were printed...I think...at Curtiss, hence the "Curtiss" on all those twice-up covers borders.  The article left out this detail -- Eastern sent everything back monthly; Curtiss sent them back quarterly, and separately, so there were envelopes with 3 months of covers in them.   When a bunch of covers from summer of '65 have showed up over the last 30 years, but nothing else for the quarter on either side, coupled with staffers' stories off needing to clear off the shelves to fit newer artwork there, I began to see what probably happened. 

I think some single covers survived but I don't think it was many: gifted to companies they were doing business with; taken as souvenirs; taken as art reference; taken for the heck of it.  Based on all the empirical evidence but not on anything anyone has told me, I think that if a specific cover was reprinted in altered form around 1966, it stood a small chance of being saved. 

Glen,

The original Submariner story first printed in Motion Picture Funnies Weekly was reprinted in, I think, Invaders #20. Did Marvel still have the originals at the time? It would have been different than the story printed in Marvel comics #1. This also brings to mind all of the Golden Age Timely reprints in Fantasy Masterpieces, which occurred in 1965-1966. Were those originals still around at the time?

[PhilipB2k17]

6 minutes ago, dem1138 said:

On top of what Glen wrote, what many of you may not know is that there were maverick OA collectors from 40+ years ago who were paying a lot of "real" money back then for the "guts" (which is what complete stories were known as).  These collectors may have had a sense of the future value but they are collectors in the truest sense that would rather sever their right arm than trade or sell the best of the best of what they now own.  And the concept of selling individual pages is a more recent development from the last 25 years or so.  These original original collectors were buying complete stories as thats how they came and thats how they were traded and bought and sold. 

Most of these collectors are still around and while they would never be on the boards, they have certainly been around and available to talk to.  Glen was an early pioneer in doing research but obviously everyone was looking for covers including those that were going to Kirby's house when he was still alive and buying art from him and asking questions and hearing stories.  Point is, people didn't just start looking for covers 20 years ago, they've been looking for decades - at least since the 70s/early 80s.  When the Marvel OA started "becoming available" from the storage garage (which led to dozens of legendary stories and rumors), don't you think they were after the covers too?  If they existed, then someone would know something and no one who I've talked to or anyone else they've talked to going back decades has seen anything.  And a lot of the "secrets" aren't really secrets (like where a lot of guts still reside) among people who have done the research.  So unless one person has them all and has never told anyone, then I'd be leaning towards them not existing either.  

I think one of the more realistic questions that has a definitive answer (though I have no info and nor does anyone I've talked to know - or they didn't share with me) is where are the guts to Avengers #4 and FF #48-50.  Because those guts certainly exist and are far too significant to have just been lost or thrown out.

Maybe the same person who has the "guts" of Avengers #4 and FF# 48-50 has all (or most) of the surviving key Silver Age Marvel original covers. (One  name throw around is George Lucas, but who really knows?).

Or, maybe the person who donated the interior art to AF #15 still has the cover? The rumor is that the interior art was offered back to Ditko, first, who declined it. The Cover is by Kirby, so that would not have been offered to Ditko, or likely declined by the Kirby estate. And maybe the owner knew that Kirby's estate was far more litigious, and didn't want to open up that can of worms?

Edited April 23, 2018 by PhilipB2k17

[dem1138]

5 minutes ago, PhilipB2k17 said:

Glen,

The original Submariner story first printed in Motion Picture Funnies Weekly was reprinted in, I think, Invaders #20. Did Marvel still have the originals at the time? It would have been different than the story printed in Marvel comics #1. This also brings to mind all of the Golden Age Timely reprints in Fantasy Masterpieces, which occurred in 1965-1966. Were those originals still around at the time?

One page from the Sub-Mariner story from Marvel #1 survived and it certainly wasn't from the Marvel offices (its now on display at the Seattle Museum doing the OA exhibit and Jim Halperin now owns it).  Burkey could provide more context as he acquired it from the owner, but if I recall correctly, it was found in a chest, along with other random rare OA, in a house of a man tangentially related to Timely from the early 40s who just randomly had it and had kept it all of those years.  

This just reinforces that a lot of this stuff survived not by intention but by a completely random series of events that somehow allowed a singular item to distinctively avoid the trash dump for many decades.  

[glendgold]

19 minutes ago, PhilipB2k17 said:

I think the key, important, covers were the ones most likely to be saved in this manner. (i.e. AF #15, or JIM #83). The random Rawhide Kid cover, not so much. That's my point. And I appreciate Glen adding to this discussion, but why would Curtiss' practices be any different than Eastern? I assume the handling of the OA was determined by what Marvel wanted, rather than the other way around. So, this goes back to the ultimate question of why Marvel would want the interior OA back, but not the covers.

I'm going to give responding to this one shot and then I'm out, as I think the points I'm making are generally different than the ones you're hearing.

1. I didn't say key covers were most likely to be saved, and I have seen no evidence of that.

2. I didn't say Curtiss's practices were different than Eastern's.

3. I didn't say Marvel didn't want the covers back.

I haven't found Jim Shooter's blog posts to be very convincing. 

As to the rest, what I wrote above, warts and all will, have to stand for now.  I think people generally get it.

Glen Out

[dem1138]

33 minutes ago, PhilipB2k17 said:

Maybe the same person who has the "guts" of Avengers #4 and FF# 48-50 has all (or most) of the surviving key Silver Age Marvel original covers. (One  name throw around is George Lucas, but who really knows?).

Or, maybe the person who donated the interior art to AF #15 still has the cover? The rumor is that the interior art was offered back to Ditko, first, who declined it. The Cover is by Kirby, so that would not have been offered to Ditko, or likely declined by the Kirby estate. And maybe the owner knew that Kirby's estate was far more litigious, and didn't want to open up that can of worms?

You can't know what you don't know and these are great hypotheses to have without any deep background knowledge or history of the hobby.  But your queries fall apart with a little bit of knowledge.  There's no secret cabal trying to hide all of the info from everyone (though there certainly are still secrets out there).  The person who offered the AF #15 to Ditko before donating it, was most likely Marie Severin.  I don't know this for a fact but its become a bit of a foregone conclusion in the hobby at this point.  And when Marie really needed money she went through Spencer and sold the covers to ASM #11 and #28.  If she had this other treasure trove, she likely would have already sold it or maybe donated it as well.  But I'd say with a high degree of certainty that she's not sitting on a pile of covers and interiors.  

Edited April 23, 2018 by dem1138

[The Voord]

11 minutes ago, dem1138 said:

You can't know what you don't know and these are great hypotheses to have without any deep background knowledge or history of the hobby.  But your queries fall apart with a little bit of knowledge.  There's no secret cabal trying to hide all of the info from everyone (though there certainly are still secrets out there).  The person who offered the AF #15 to Ditko before donating it, was most likely Marie Severin.  I don't know this for a fact but its become a bit of a foregone conclusion in the hobby at this point.  And when Marie really needed money she went through Spencer and sold the covers to ASM #11 and #30.  If she had this other treasure trove, she likely would have already sold it or maybe donated it as well.  But I'd say with a high degree of certainty that she's not sitting on a pile of covers and interiors.  

Thought it was ASM # 28 sold via Spencer?  ASM # 30 was owned by Tom Neal who, I believe, later sold it.

[PhilipB2k17]

28 minutes ago, dem1138 said:

You can't know what you don't know and these are great hypotheses to have without any deep background knowledge or history of the hobby.  But your queries fall apart with a little bit of knowledge.  There's no secret cabal trying to hide all of the info from everyone (though there certainly are still secrets out there).  The person who offered the AF #15 to Ditko before donating it, was most likely Marie Severin.  I don't know this for a fact but its become a bit of a foregone conclusion in the hobby at this point.  And when Marie really needed money she went through Spencer and sold the covers to ASM #11 and #30.  If she had this other treasure trove, she likely would have already sold it or maybe donated it as well.  But I'd say with a high degree of certainty that she's not sitting on a pile of covers and interiors.  

ASM #11 and #28 (not #30) are both Ditko covers. Has she sold any Kirby art?

 

31 minutes ago, glendgold said:

I'm going to give responding to this one shot and then I'm out, as I think the points I'm making are generally different than the ones you're hearing.

1. I didn't say key covers were most likely to be saved, and I have seen no evidence of that.

2. I didn't say Curtiss's practices were different than Eastern's.

3. I didn't say Marvel didn't want the covers back.

I haven't found Jim Shooter's blog posts to be very convincing. 

As to the rest, what I wrote above, warts and all will, have to stand for now.  I think people generally get it.

Glen Out

1. I said the key covers were the most likely to be saved. I never meant to imply you said that. But logic dictates that if any from this period were to be "saved" through whatever means, they were the most likely candidates.

2. If Curtiss' practices were no different than Eastern's, then the covers were returned to Marvel, just as the interiors were.

3. I never claimed or implied that you believed that Marvel didn't want their covers back. I think they did. And that they were, in fact, returned.

4. Jim Shooter has no reason, at this point, to lie about his recollections on this subject, or cover for Marvel (which unceremoniously fired him decades ago). His comments on this were not unreasonable, IMHO. But that's neither here, nor there, because his statements are not particularly definitive, as most of the art in question was probably long gone before he ever became editor-in-chief at Marvel.

 

Edited April 23, 2018 by PhilipB2k17

[dem1138]

10 minutes ago, The Voord said:

Thought it was ASM # 28 sold via Spencer?  ASM # 30 was owned by Tom Neal who, I believe, later sold it.

Apologies #28, my mistake and corrected above for posterity.  I understand that #30 showed up on eBay and sold fairly inexpensively due to the tiny Spider-man.  Speaking of things that showed up on eBay, the complete interiors to the Iron Man story from TOS #39 showed up a few times but hasn't appeared again for a long time.  I wonder where those are now.  I THINK the asking was 100K, which at the time(s) seemed outrageous but now seems cheap.

[PhilipB2k17]

1 minute ago, dem1138 said:

Apologies #28, my mistake and corrected above for posterity.  I understand that #30 showed up on eBay and sold fairly inexpensively due to the tiny Spider-man.  Speaking of things that showed up on eBay, the complete interiors to the Iron Man story from TOS #39 showed up a few times but hasn't appeared again for a long time.  I wonder where those are now.  I THINK the asking was 100K, which at the time(s) seemed outrageous but now seems cheap.

A couple were sold individually, I believe, at HA.

 

[Bronty]

28 minutes ago, PhilipB2k17 said:

But logic dictates that if any from this period were to be "saved" through whatever means, they were the most likely candidates.

No...   I don't think logic dictates that at all.   They are only important with hindsight.    If the cover envelopes were chucked when they came back to marvel, for example, the person throwing away the envelope would have drawn no particular distinction in late 62 between the covers to JIM 82 vs 83 vs 84.

Again, its possible.    Its just unlikely at this point.    The average person sitting on these would simply not be able to keep them all, they would be too valuable.    If you lived in a 300k house and owned 9 figures worth of art.. you have to sell some, you just have to.   To protect your position in case of a fire.    To have some cash for your heirs.   To achieve life goals, whatever.

It would take an extraordinary mindset, or an extraordinarily wealthy person, to hang onto it all this time and never say a word.

And, that person would have to be at least 80 years old at this point.    

20 years from now... if they haven't shown up... they aren't out there because anyone owning them would be dead.

Edited April 23, 2018 by Bronty

[vodou]

12 minutes ago, Bronty said:

No...   I don't think logic dictates that at all.

Logic is being abused something terrible in this thread.

Poor logic.

[The Voord]

18 minutes ago, Bronty said:

Again, its possible.    Its just unlikely at this point.    The average person sitting on these would simply not be able to keep them all, they would be too valuable.    If you lived in a 300k house and owned 9 figures worth of art.. you have to sell some, you just have to.   To protect your position in case of a fire.    To have some cash for your heirs.   To achieve life goals, whatever.

It would take an extraordinary mindset, or an extraordinarily wealthy person, to hang onto it all this time and never say a word.

And, that person would have to be at least 80 years old at this point.    

20 years from now... if they haven't shown up... they aren't out there because anyone owning them would be dead.

The owners of stolen 'Honeymooners' episodes would likely to be dead already . . .

[Bronty]

11 minutes ago, vodou said:

Logic is being abused something terrible in this thread.

Poor logic.

[zhamlau]

38 minutes ago, Bronty said:

1 hour ago, PhilipB2k17 said:

But logic dictates that if any from this period were to be "saved" through whatever means, they were the most likely candidates.

No...   I don't think logic dictates that at all.   They are only important with hindsight.    If the cover envelopes were chucked when they came back to marvel, for example, the person throwing away the envelope would have drawn no particular distinction in late 62 between the covers to JIM 82 vs 83 vs 84.

Again, its possible.    Its just unlikely at this point.    The average person sitting on these would simply not be able to keep them all, they would be too valuable.    If you lived in a 300k house and owned 9 figures worth of art.. you have to sell some, you just have to.   To protect your position in case of a fire.    To have some cash for your heirs.   To achieve life goals, whatever.

It would take an extraordinary mindset, or an extraordinarily wealthy person, to hang onto it all this time and never say a word.

And, that person would have to be at least 80 years old at this point.    

20 years from now... if they haven't shown up... they aren't out there because anyone owning them would be dead.

Could just get a safe deposit box, and drop the pages in little mylar sheets in it for a 1000 or less a year and just forget about em.